Why Apple Juice Is Worse Than Soda | JJ Virgin

Now, the next thing we're going to talk about is the glycemic index for understanding sugar versus the sugar impact. Can you tell us about that?

Yes, I think, you know, when I wrote the Virgin Diet, the number one question I got asked about was sugar. And people fell into two camps. And most of them seemed to be in both camps. They were either confused by it, they didn't understand, you know, well, can I have honey? What about white flour? You know, what's good, what's bad all or they were just controlled by it. I mean, sugar is the number one drug worldwide. And when I looked at it, I went, well, we've really been looking at sugar all wrong. And that's a big part of the problem because we've been using a framework that needs to be blown up, the glycemic index. Because the glycemic index takes a 50 gram dose of a food in isolation and then measures the body's blood sugar response to it, there are a number of problems with that. Number one problem with that is that 50 grams is reasonable for a potato and totally unreasonable for carrots. Number two, so it makes potatoes and carrots look the same. They both look like they're bad for you. Number two, we don't eat foods in isolation. Most people don't sit down and go, I'm eat 50 grams of carrots right now. We'll have a potato, we'll have steak, we'll have some butter on it. So you've got to look at the whole impact of the meal rather than just the isolated food. Because when you have fiber involved, when you have protein, when you have fat, it's going to change the blood sugar response. But the biggest problem with the glycemic index is it makes the worst sugar of all look like a saint. When you look at carbohydrates, all carbohydrates turn into sugar. What I tell people is you really don't want to mainline sugar. You want your body to slowly make sugar from the food you eat. Sugar and carbs, all carbs, except for fiber, are going to turn into sugar. It's just a matter of how much work your body has to do to take it there. And from those sugars, wherever they come from, you either are going to end up with glucose or fructose. And fructose predominantly comes from fruit, but now we've extracted it from corn. And of course, agave is the highest fructose source of anything in nature. And so what happens when you eat fructose is it doesn't raise the glycemic index. So for so long we thought this was a great thing. It doesn't raise blood sugar because it goes straight to the liver. It's the only organ that can metabolize it. And when it goes to the liver, if there's no room in that liver for it to be stored as glycogen, converted to glucose, stored as glycogen. Glycogen, the liver's not very big. It starts turning it into fat. And that's why we now have fatty liver. In children. We have non alcoholic fatty liver disease. But worse than that, it also didn't trigger the rise in blood sugar, which again, we thought was good, but is really bad. Because when you don't trigger the rise in blood sugar, your body doesn't hear this sugar. So it doesn't raise blood sugar, it doesn't raise insulin, leptin, it doesn't trigger ghrelin. So all of the things that would tell your body to give your body normal appetite control get shut down. And the more fructose you eat, the better your body gets at transporting it quickly to the liver to make more fat. So fructose is the most aging sugar. It's super sweet. The more sweet you want, the more sweet you. The more sweet you eat, the more sweet you want. Yep. And it's going to create insulin resistance, diabetes, hypertension. It feeds the worst cancers of all. I mean, it is such a bad thing. And it got a hall pass for so many years and still gets a hall pass. If you look at the glycemic index, you'll go to the health food store. And vishen. The worst part about going to a health food store is people walk in there and think everything in there is healthy. And you go in the health food store and there's all these treats made with agave. And it's crazy because they are worse for you. You might as well like apple juice. You're better off having a. I know it's going to sound contradictory, but I'm going to say it. Because you're better off having a soda than you are having apple juice, because apple juice is higher in fructose than a Coke.

Wow. Wait, you mean J.J. that's shocking. Now you're talking about fresh apple juice.

Or the type fresh apple juice worse for you. I know, controversial. I like to say controversial stuff, but fructose is the most damaging sugar of all.

But fructose is everywhere. I mean, high fructose corn syrup is in everything from Heinz ketchup to Coca Cola.

And you know what's so funny is so now we're going against high fructose corn syrup. But, you know, table sugar is not that much different than high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup will be anywhere between 50 and 65% fructose, and table sugar is about 50, 55% fructose. Agave is up to 90% fructose. And you go to the store and it is legal in the United States to put no sugar added on a product to that's got fruit juice concentrate in it. They can use apple juice concentrate because it's super sweet and say no sugar added and lie on that label. And some unsuspecting mom trying to do the best thing for her kid is gonna buy that. It makes me crazy. The WIC program in the United States gives apple juice to toddlers and is creating diabetics, little diabetic kids in the poor kids. It is such bad stuff.

But jj, jj, this seems very controversial because what you're saying is essentially fruit and fruit juices are unhealthy.

Well, now, fruit juice is not healthy. Fruit juice concentrate is not healthy. Dried fruit is candy, okay? Fruit is not free food. There is this idea out there because in the United States we have the USDA MyPlate and it says, eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. And what they give you for servings are, it could be a cup of juice, it could be some raisins, it could be a banana, or it could be broccoli. And I'm thinking, okay, so you gave someone the choice between ketchup, fruit juice, dried fruit, a potato, or kale. Which one are they going to choose? And you just made kale seem like it's the same as raisins. And kale and raisins are not the same food. We've got to get away from this idea that fruit is free food. One or two servings of a low sugar impact. Fruit, berries, grapefruit, great. But you know, this idea that we can just have all we want or that raisins are a health food. Raisins are not a health food. Raisins are little sugar bombs. That's what they are, right? And you know, these green drinks out there. There's a green drink in the United States and it's in Canada too. It's got 56 grams of sugar in 16 ounces. A soda has 40 grams. It is not a green drink. It says Green Boost. Right? And it's called Green Machine. It says Green Boost and it Says powered by greens. Well, in reality, it's got five servings of fruits. It's got mango puree and apple juice, you know, all these really high sugar impact fruits. Because we want to think we're doing a good thing having these greens, but we don't actually want to taste them, right? If you're drinking a green drink and it tastes sweet, it's not a green drink. It's a fruit juice with greens in it because that makes it look green. But it's fruit juice, it's a soda.

So what you're trying to say is beware of fruit. I mean, sorry, maybe that sounds harsh. What you're trying to say is fruit isn't free food. And in many cases, when we think we are buying a fruit puree, a fruit drink, even from a store like Whole Foods, it really is a sugar bomb. It's as bad as a can of coke.

Read the label, look at the sugar grams. Even straight green drinks. I put chia seeds in it so that it slows down the. You know, if you just do a big green drink, then that's got, say I'll do one with kale and chard and spinach and lime juice and cucumber. Because lime juice has no fructose. But if you do that, it still doesn't have the fiber in it. You juiced it, right? You took the fiber out, you kept the juice. So throw some chia seeds in because then it will slow down the blood sugar release. So you really want to eat your food and drink your water, right? You do not want to drink your fruit. That's unwrapping the fruit, ditching the fiber and just getting a straight sugar hit. It's the worst thing that you can do. Fruit juice is off the table. It's just like, it's like having a soda.